Elza talks about her childhood, how her family was deported and how they returned home. My father was sick and bed-bound when two soldiers came into our house to deport us. One of them was a Russian and the other a Tatar. At first they were harsh and angry but soon calmed down and allowed us to take warm things with us. We were not deported straight away, but were first kept in an empty house till dawn and then loaded into trucks and transported to the train station. We did not have time to even slaughter a sheep for food. On the way to exile our train passed over a bridge that had been constructed recently. When our train passed, the bridge was shaking and we all prayed that it did not collapse. Later I heard that the bridge collapsed under the next train that followed ours. No proper food was provided during the trip, and they gave us only some warmish soup. The carriages were very cold inside. In Krasnoyarsk the train was unloaded, and we were sent to a place to rid ourselves of lice. The beads and talismans that the old Kalmyk women were wearing around their necks were taken away by Russian girls. We were put into barracks until the spring. All who could work were sent to work. In the spring we moved to the second branch of the local collective farm where life became a bit easier for us. We collected potatoes, and we could also get some food from around. In the collective farm we met Russians with whom we became friends. The following year I married a soldier who returned from the front wounded. I have 6 children and 34 grandchildren. In my 94 years I have seen so much. My children have all grown up, and now I am just resting. After our marriage, my husband found a better place and we moved to the kormosovkhoz (collective farm that produced feed for cattle). There, our eldest daughter went to school. I myself worked as a nurse in a kindergarten. In 1957 we were allowed to return to our homeland. We bought whatever needed for the trip and set off. Since my husband was originally from the village of Barun in Astrakhan region, he wanted to go to his native village. But I wanted our family to live in my native village. For the time being we decided to stop in Tsagan-Aman where we lived until we moved to Elista.